


under control

by anicula



Series: take some time [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 15:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18195824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anicula/pseuds/anicula
Summary: pre-wedding, wedding, and post-wedding: three stages of letting go Tina is fully (not at all) prepared for





	under control

“Would you like to have her invited?” Tina’s hand hovered over the blank invitations. “There’s space - Queenie and I don’t have anyone,” she shifted in her chair, “And Jacob doesn’t either - not over here. You can bring anyone you want,” she offered with her voice astonishingly steady under the circumstances. 

New shook his head, stopping her flow of words with his hand over hers. “I really don’t want to impose.” 

“You wouldn’t be.” Tina slipped her hand out from under his, the martyr in her forcing her to keep pressing the issue. “We’d love to have other - friends,” she wavered on the  _f_  word, “come to the wedding. It’s a celebration, it’s meant to have people there. Celebrating.” She waved her hand in the air. 

Newt’s mouth flattened. “That’s really not necessary.”

“Wouldn’t Bunty feel left out?” Tina focused on the tiny gold lettering on the heavy cream paper. “And I know Leta-”

“Does Queenie want them there so badly?” Newt’s hand folded into a fist on the table. 

Tina opened her mouth but nothing came out. She huffed and pressed her lips together. 

“Maybe we should wait for Queenie,” Newt said, this time softer, in supplication, an answer to the indecipherable frustration marring her brow, frustration even she couldn’t fully identify the source of. 

She conceded with a short, “Of course,” and snapped the folder of invites shut.

 

“Queenie, this really isn’t-” 

“Yes it is,” Queenie’s reply was short and fierce, the dress clutched to her chest protectively. 

Tina grimaced. “We already bought so many dresses when we moved.”

“Well we had to,” her sister insisted stubbornly. “And what does it matter? Both our pay is so much better here and heavens know you only had the two - and, and don’t you want to look nice?” There was an uncharacteristic frown on her sister’s face, her jaw locked into a hard line. 

Tina attempted to look placating. It wasn’t always easy for her sister, she knew. It hadn’t been for either of them at all - but it was easier for Tina, easier to be dowdy and accept it and pretend her clothes were oversized on purpose, that she chose to wear masculine boots and that not wearing rouge was a personal choice, not a financial restraint - to not  _chafe_  under those restraints. And unlike Queenie, she had grown comfortable within those restraints, wanted them now even when they didn’t have them  _or_  need them.

The lines on Queenie’s face resolved themselves, a sure sign she had caught wind of Tina’s train of thought. Queenie waved off Tina’s mental apology, as vague and empty as it was. Neither of their reactions were each other’s fault but it still flared up on occasion, a tiny ugly little reminder of who they were.

“I just thought - it’d be nice to have a full set of new things,” Queenie sighed into the quiet of the dressing room. “No one here knows us.”  _No one here knows the grubby, orphaned us_  was the undercurrent rippling through her words. 

Tina’s breath caught in her throat. “It’s not shameful to be who we were,” she said softly, a pause and then, “Who we are.”

“I know,” Queenie answered with a twist of her mouth, “But I also know that I don’t want to hear ‘those poor little dears’ ever again in my life Teenie.” Her blue eyes were bright in the warm glow of the dressing room. 

Tina held her hand out for the dress Queenie had gripped with two white knuckled hands. 

“Thank you.” 

Anyone who ever doubted they were related would have no doubts once they heard the clipped tone of Queenie’s words. Tina let her sister sweep past her, towards the endless racks of dresses and robes and everything a small desolate child of eight could dream of. 

She fingered the soft weave of the dress in her hand. It was incredibly soft, with small velvet black polka dots breaking up the sea of navy. 

Tina sighed and squared her shoulders, making her way behind the curtains.

 

The cake was, of course, a masterpiece. A monster of a thing with more tiers than people at the wedding. A majestic cream white that nearly put the bride’s dress to shame. And piped ever so painstakingly along the edges were intricate creatures, charmed to scamper and fly about playfully as the bride and groom made the first cut. 

Tina tugged at her knuckles. 

The cake was one of the few things that had gone off without a hitch. There was nothing nostalgic or painful about a wonderful sponge made with heart and hands and certain paws of creatures who would absolutely not be kept away from caramelized sugar. 

But yet, seeing her baby sister, resplendent in white - her dress the dreamiest silk with her floating veil and her beautiful flower crown - and knowing,  _knowing_ , the cake was the effort of all of the wedding party, little Pickett included, well. It was enough to make a girl a smidge toady in the throat. 

She wiped at her cheeks, a quick swipe while the bride and groom were turned towards each other with their full forks, feeling just a bit more hollow with every bite they took and trying her damnedest not to let any of that seep through to the happiest girl in the tent. A calloused hand on her shoulder startled her out of her reverie, blue green eyes peering at her carefully under a halfheartedly tamed fringe. 

“Are you feeling alright?” Newt’s voice was hushed, too quiet for the noise and cheer of the room.

Tina cleared her throat. “Yes.” She leaned back and nodded towards the chair next to her. “Want a seat?”

Newt folded himself into the chair, the pressed lines of his suit wrinkling at the edges. Tina passed him a flute from the table. 

“This is quite lovely,” Newt said before taking a small sip from the glass. 

“You picked it from what I recall.” Tina folded her arms on the table, attention back on Queenie in the middle of the tent. 

“I meant the wedding.”

“I’d pass along your regards but seeing as you planned so much of it I suspect the happy couple already knows.”

“I just ate what they told me to and drank when they told me to,” Newt said with a small lift of his shoulder. “All major orchestration of events were up to the higher powers,” he continued with a tilt of his flute at Tina. 

Tina smiled down at her piece of the dessert. “Well you only get married once, might as well do it right.”

Newt’s answering smile was too soft in the candlelight. Tina looked away and cleared her throat, hand wrapped determinedly around her fork and knife, putting all her attention on the cake. 

They sat companionably at the table, picking away at their respective slices of the cake and taking conservative sips of the champagne as the bride and groom whirled their way around the makeshift dance floor. It wasn’t until the song changed to something slow and familiar, the strings filling the air with an American touch that made Tina a little hollow again, that Newt bumped her shoulder and tilted his head towards the floor in invitation.

“I thought you held a strong dislike for the  _crooners_  Mr. Scamander,” Tina said, her glass covering her mouth.

Newt’s lips twisted up at the corners. “Well I’ve since been persuaded by some of Mr. Austin’s most devout following that perhaps he’s not so intolerable as the others.”

“Intolerable?” Tina lifted a brow.

“Respectable,” Newt offered in exchange.

“Respectable.” Tina’s voice went up in disbelief.

“Perfectly dance-able?”

Tina pulled him out of his seat just to stop his utterly insensible line of thought.

 

“Now you must write Teenie - everyday you hear me?” Queenie had her arms around Tina so tight you’d think they’d never see each other again nevermind that it’d only be two weeks and one short floo trip in either direction.

Tina kept herself obediently still while her sister continued to wax platitudes, full of sentiment but of very little use except to settle her sister’s nerves.

“And you must come see us when we get back - none of that giving us space nonsense,” her sister rattled on, “We’ll have plenty of that on the trip and oh - Tina, you-”

“Honey,” Jacob broke in, their luggage in a trolley next to him, “We really must get going or else we’ll miss it.” He jerked his head towards the stern lady guarding the doors to the international floo room.

“Oh! Yes, I’m sorry honey I just-” Queenie pulled at Tina’s sleeves uselessly.

“Queenie - relax. You and Jacob are going to have a great old time and I promise I will be the first person you see the moment your foot steps on English soil again alright?” Tina pulled her sister in again, giving Jacob an apologetic look over Queenie’s shoulder. 

Jacob shrugged it off and pulled her in for a hug when Queenie finally relinquished her tight grip on Tina. “Can’t say I won’t miss you too Tina,” he said, holding her at arm’s length before giving her another bone crushing hug.

They were both ridiculous and Tina could not stop giving them both one last hug in goodbye before she pushed them towards the doors. 

The click of the lock was loud in the sudden quiet of the emptied room. 

Tina sighed. It felt so final, the dark finish of the doors locking the sight of her sister and Jacob away. She smoothed down her skirts and breathed in, straightening. She turned and made her way out of the building.

Her lunch hour  _was_  ticking precariously closer to two hours than the standard one.


End file.
